


somewhere lost in the ephemeral

by seraf



Series: backstage passes! [4]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Foreshadowing, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, Pre-Canon, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Stream of Consciousness, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 07:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18936211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraf/pseuds/seraf
Summary: he's sure they're good people, deep down. or maybe not. either way, it doesn't matter. all they are is shells of people, for danganronpa to fill the hollows of as they choose.still, he watches them, and learns about them. whether he wants to or not.





	somewhere lost in the ephemeral

shuichi saihara is a super fan, and rantaro pulls his legs just a little bit further back on the roof to make sure he isn’t seen as he walks by. he humored him at first - it’s not like he’d had much interaction with fans while he’d been stuck in vr, but the questions wore thin _really_ quickly. especially since so many of them were ones he had no interest in answering. ( _what did it feel like when [REDACTED] was executed last season? were you surprised when [REDACTED] turned out to be the traitor? were you lying in v1 about how much you cared? why did you choose to be the sacrifice again in v2? )_

 

most of this new cast recognizes him.

 

of course they do. this is danganronpa. if they know enough about it that they were able to get through all the audition stages, they know who he is. three time survivor, rantaro amami. ultimate useless older brother amami. ultimate adventurer amami. amami who survived a stab wound that nicked his ribs, and his head being shoved under the water, and a three-story fall. ( in v1, after the first trial, he’d been outed as the ultimate survivor, and he’d been considered a threat, from then on. )

 

there are a few different types of people who audition for danganronpa. he’s learned to recognize them all by this point.

 

diehard fans of the show. tsumugi had been one, and it seemed like shuichi was, as well. rantaro wondered if he’d be given a mastermind role, a few years after this game, if he wound up one of the survivors. maybe he’d like that. his audition was pretty brutal.

 

people who need the money. rantaro thinks, maybe once, that was him. but that might not be real, either. from this round . . . seems like that might be himiko, maki, ryoma, kokichi, and kirumi. easy enough to tell them apart - they didn’t have strong feelings about the game one way or another. rantaro wants to hate them for making this choice, but he can’t really blame them. in their own way, they’re just trying to survive.

 

bullies. violent people. people who wanted the chance to kill. kaito stood out immediately fromthis group as that sort - his aggression wasn’t feigned, like some people’s auditions were. not even subconsciously - like they thought they were capable of killing until it came down to it. rantaro had no doubts about it - kaito momota absolutely had the capacity to be a killer. he wonders if that’ll carry over to his character. kaede might be part of this group, though she was more . . . cynical, rather than outright murderous. as she is now, she’d be the type to jump on the first blood perk tsumugi mentioned offering. miu - she had a hairline trigger kind of temper, the kind that set off violently and physically. she had mentioned, during tsumugi’s scouting of them, that sometimes she’s really just wanted to wrap her hands around someone’s throat and squeeze hard enough that the life went out of them. that she wanted to be the kind of person strong enough, physically and mentally, to do that.

 

he wanted to tell her killers weren’t strong people.

 

but what did he know? he’d never been strong enough to try.

 

the next sort - people who were searching for some kind of identity, or a change in the kind of person they were. who just wanted to be someone _different._ tenko - how proud had she been of her neo-akido uniform, the long braids in her hair, her skirt? rantaro just empathizes with her - team danganronpa had covered his top surgery after the first game, and had his body on t during the course of the game. it was certainly . . . one route you could take. angie - no clear sense of identity one way or another, caught between cultures. currently trying to zip up her jacket just a little higher, shoulders curling in on herself to hide all her bare skin. gonta; in juvie for killing someone, in the flesh. in the world outside of danganronpa. one of those situations where a kid is too strong for their own good and finally fights back against an adult trying to keep them pinned down. he wanted to be someone _better._ being on danganronpa - the fact that they’ve got new personality implants means his record will be cleared entirely.

 

rantaro despises danganronpa sometimes, for taking advantage of people. especially in this kind of case - they offer the temptation of actually _being_ someone. a new person with a new story and a real talent. what kind of kid in a bad situation wouldn’t think that was appealing?

 

at least this time there weren’t too many suicidal contestants. korekiyo stood out very clearly - tsumugi hadn’t been particularly subtle in incorporating that in his design, with bandages that wrapped from his elbows to his fingertips. rantaro wondered if he qualified as one of this group, too. himiko was . . . she was, and she wasn’t. she seemed to swing through highs and lows, including whether or not she wanted to die. he hopes she makes it. ( and he hopes she _doesn’t,_ because if she makes it to the end - if she wasn’t suicidal already, there’s every chance she might become so. )

 

and then. the third kind. the people who had no choice in the matter.

 

an obligation to be here.

 

of course, there was himself. he supposes tsumugi qualifies for it as well - she wouldn’t have the choice to back out if she wanted to, but she loves danganronpa. even in the flesh, she lives in this world. her entire identity consists of the fictional - her title and talent and job all hinge on just how well she can weave fiction and real life. and keebo, the ultimate robot, the new gimmick for this season - audience participation. rantaro thought the crowds were going to go wild for that.

 

he wondered which of them rantaro amami the fifth would be friends with. he wondered if he’d make friends with _any_ of them - whether he’d be too paranoid or not, whether he himself would be trustworthy in their eyes, whether he’d live that long.

 

he doesn’t envy some of them their backstories. tsumugi really has . . . a flair for the dramatic, doesn’t she. seventeen year old secret prime minister of japan. assassin with a heart of gold deep down who grew up in a cult-sponsored orphanage. gentleman-to-be raised in the forest for years by a secret society of lizard people. incestuous serial killer with a fixation on death since his sister died. inmate who killed over a hundred mafia members via tennis.

 

he wants to tell her she’s been watching too much damn anime. it felt so exaggerated it was almost ridiculous.

 

these few days are always . . . interesting. time to acclimate to their talents and outfits _without_ having their implant personalities. almost a little gift, from team danganronpa to the contestants who had come so far for this.

 

so he’s sitting on the roof, watching the fifteen people trapped in this high tech birdcage with him, and avoiding some of them. he felt bad for them, of course, but not bad enough to subject himself to spending time with some of the less pleasant among them.

 

there had been the hours of shuichi shadowing him, of course. and also a brief tussle with kaito, where kaito was trying to prove how _tough_ or something he was by fighting him. rantaro had just dodged out of the way the whole time, light on his feet. he supposes there’s some good in being the ultimate adventurer for four years.

 

a conversation with korekiyo.   
( ‘ _hey. do you know what might happen to me? ‘ he had asked rantaro, morbid curiousity clear in his face._  
rantaro’s face twists into a line, and he nods, slowly. ‘ do you really want to know? ‘ he asks the impromptu anthropologist.   
‘ it’s not as though i’ll remember it. i might as well. ‘  
rantaro had nodded, sighed. ‘ it’s . . . there’s no chance you’re going to be a survivor, from what i’ve heard. you might be the double-killer in trial three, or - if they choose to do a suicide in trial four like they have some years, that might be you. or . . . the fifth trial is always a little bit of a convoluted plot twisting mess. you might be the victim, there, if i remember right. ‘ 

_‘ well . . . i didn’t sign up to make it through. ‘_

_‘ to be honest with you, ‘ rantaro had said, with a little bit of an involuntary grimace, ‘ you should hope for one of the latter two. your execution is . . . brutal. ‘_

_‘ . . . i’m not sure if i want to know or not. but it’s going to haunt me for the rest of our time here if i don’t find out, so . . . what is it? ‘_

_‘ i don’t know some parts of it, ‘ rantaro admits, ‘ but you’re going to be tied up and boiled alive. ‘_

_‘ ah, ‘ he had said, faintly. ‘ do you know what your own execution would be? ‘_

_‘ have for three years now. it’s . . . never come up, though. guess they don’t want me to be the kind of person that kills people, huh? ‘ )_

 

a brief moment in passing with kokichi, whose talent upgrade included an intelligence that never stopped or slowed in its tracks, combined with a personality that hadn’t been built to fit with that - he had been _smart,_ but not scheming-clever-cunning smart like kokichi the character would be. rantaro had only paused and watched him for a moment, watched him pace back and forth and chew his nails bloody.

 

a meal eaten with kirumi at two in the morning. she couldn’t sleep - and her talent now gave her so much she could do. she had cooked up a hundred things, simply because she now _could._ rantaro hadn’t been able to sleep, either, so he had joined her at the overburdened table and tried to do his part to clear it.

 

he knows better than to think of them as friends. these people, by about noon in two days time, will no longer exist, and neither will he.

 

he can’t muster the energy to feel anything more than dull relief, acceptance, for that.

**Author's Note:**

> coherent writing? no. take more incoherent introspective ramblings about rantaro


End file.
